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Jill Magid

Jill Magid is a widely celebrated MIT alumna now based in New York City. Her dynamic practice is deeply interrogative, forging intimate relationships within bureaucratic structures—flirting with, seducing, and subverting authority. Her projects probe seemingly impenetrable systems, such as the New York City Police Department, the Dutch Secret Service, surveillance systems, and, most recently, the restricted archive of Mexican architect Luis Barragán. By infiltrating and unsettling powerful institutions, she locates unexpected and rich communities within the structures of bureaucracy.

Installation view of The Facistol at MUAC, Mexico City 2017 photo by Oliver Santana

Magid has exhibited at the San Francisco Art Institute; Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland; Berkeley Museum of Art, California; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; Gagosian Gallery, New York; and the Security and Intelligence Agency of the Netherlands. She has participated in Manifesta and Performa, and in the Liverpool, Bucharest, Singapore, and Gothenburg Biennials, as well as the Oslo Architecture Triennial. She has also performed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; New Museum, New York; and the South London Gallery.

Her four books include: Failed States (2012), Becoming Tarden (2010), Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy (2007), and Once Cycle of Memory in the City of L (2004). Sternberg Press recently published The Proposal on her work of the same name.

For more than 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers​, and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking among the top programs in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries​, and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate​, and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, Jeff Koons, and LeRoy Neiman.